Tuesday, March 27, 2012

While reading a blue post today (yeah, it is our good ol' buddy Ghostcrawler), I liked a bit of what is in store in Pandaria. Below are some changes you might not have read up on yet, and if you are like me when I read them, I am actually surprised, and happy about them. Let's hope they pass the Beta and make it to Live.....

IT'S ALWAYS A LONELY HUNTER, ISN'T IT?

The personal loot system will initially be used for Raid Finder and for world bosses. We want to use it for world bosses because we want it to be fairly easy to form PUGs to take down these bosses when they're up. If my raiding guild is about to take on a world boss, and some lonely hunter is asking to join the group (it’s always a lonely hunter, isn’t it?), it would be nice to be able to bring him on without worrying about that jerk taking loot away from me or my friends. We want to foster a “the more the merrier” attitude with world bosses.

I like this idea, but it is sure to get some QQ'ing. I am sure you can think of a few...

CRAFTSMEN AND ELDERS DAILIES:

The way it works is like this: We have two major Pandaren factions, the Elders and the Craftsmen. Completing daily quests and scenarios for each group earns you one of two currencies. The Craftsmen tokens are spent mostly on cosmetic items. The Elder tokens are spent mostly on power items. The intent here is to let players who want some optional content to be able to devote time to both Craftsmen and Elders, while more min-max focused players or players who don’t want such a time commitment can stick to Elders. The Elder tokens can be used to purchase head enchants, some nice purple items, and the kind of gear you’ve come to expect from factions. However, they also sell an item called a Charm of Good Fortune. Imagine you can complete a quest once a week to buy one Charm for 25 Elder Tokens. You also might be able to save up a few charms, but you won’t be able to hoard them until the next tier of content.

Head Enchants, epix, and blues (maybe even mounts and pets?) have usually come from gaining reputation. But a charm of good fortune is a really cool addition, hopefully they find a happy medium, maybe a couple days worth of dailies. A weeks worth for just some mats? Not my grind. Did I mention I hate questing? No? Okay. I DO.

CHARMS OF GOOD FORTUNE/Bonus Roll:

If you have one or more Charms of Good Fortune, then whenever you kill a raid boss (in Raid Finder, normal or heroic) then a new UI window will pop up asking if you want to spend your Charm on a bonus roll. If you click yes, then you’ll instantly get another shot at that boss’s loot table! You will always win something from the bonus roll, such as a pile of gold, gems, or flasks.

However, you also have a small (but not miniscule) chance of receiving a piece of epic loot. As with the personal loot system, the item will always be something designed for your current spec. Also, just as with personal loot, the game doesn’t analyze if you already have the item, if the item would be an upgrade for you, or if you prefer axes to swords or anything like that.

"Small but not minscule?" That tells me NO WAY YOU WILL EVER GET PURPLES. And really, why can't the game tell if it's an upgrade? They can read my hard drive at any time (per the TOS), but they can't figure a code to tell if my ilvl400 is a better shoulder than the ilvl401 that dropped? Now I am QQ'ing. I was hoping it didn't come to me bitching. Oh well. It's nearing the end of the post anyways....

VALOR POINT CHANGES:

In Mists of Pandaria, Valor will be used to power a new feature that allows you to increase the item level of your existing epic items. This means that each week, you can become a little more powerful, hopefully allowing you to kill that boss that has eluded you thus far. There will be a bit of a game in trying to decide when to upgrade your gear versus hoping for a new piece to drop from a raid boss, but our plan is that even heroic gear can be upgraded slightly in this way.

I really like this more than other ideas soon to come as it will feel like you are getting a little buff for the extra time you play versus "oooweee, I got enough for some boots to sell- /2 here I come!". Well played Blizz, well played.

Alto.

2
comments:

Jaeger
said...

I'm not crazy about the "improved" loot rules they've come up with either; doesn't seem like an improvement to me. It's just like they said "Well, everyone needs, so we'll just auto-need for you and if there's no loot for your class, we'll give you a crappy consolation prize..." Definitely, a cop out.